To Have and to Kill (19 page)
Read To Have and to Kill Online
Authors: Mary Jane Clark
J
ack had made the dinner reservation at Colicchio & Sons on Tenth Avenue. He was waiting at the bar when Piper arrived, carrying Jack’s present in a shopping bag. She went to kiss him on the cheek, but as he leaned toward her, they ended up brushing lips.
“That was a nice surprise,” Jack said, grinning.
They were promptly shown to their table. Jack scanned the wine list, avoiding the reds that cost more than a week’s salary, and ordered the Gioveto from Tuscany.
“Whoa,” said Piper, recognizing the name from her waitressing days at Sidecar. “We’re really going all out tonight, aren’t we?”
Jack shrugged. “Why not? It’s Christmas after all and you only live once.”
“That’s the truth,” said Piper. “Travis and Peggy and Jessie Terhune have made me realize it. Have you heard anything new, Jack?”
He told Piper about the theft of the necklace reported by Arthur Walden. “Walden maintains it was stolen at the ALRMF wrap party.”
“There were a lot of people at that party,” said Piper as she digested the information. “Do the police think the theft is related to the murders and the attack on Peggy?”
“It’s a definite possibility,” answered Jack. “They are also trying to track down where the letter-opener Peggy was stabbed with came from. Apparently, the handle was marked by the manufacturer and the brand is only sold in fine stores.”
“Well, I guess that’s something,” said Piper. “But fine stores aren’t scarce in Manhattan, or around the country for that matter. It could have come from any of them.”
“Right,” said Jack. “And even if you find where the letter opener was purchased, it doesn’t mean you’ll know who bought it because the killer could have paid cash. Unless something unusual stuck out with the salesperson, we’re probably going to be out of luck.”
The waiter came with the wine, presenting the bottle to Jack for his inspection, uncorking it and pouring a small amount in Jack’s glass. Jack went through the expected motions, swirling the red liquid around, inhaling deeply, and then taking a sip. He nodded to the waiter.
“I was thinking,” said Piper when the waiter finished pouring and walked away from the table. She told Jack about Quent Raynor not coming to the funeral reception, which meant that he could have had the opportunity to attack Peggy. And she mentioned that she had seen Jessie rushing away from him at the wrap party.
“Do you think Quent could possibly be the killer, Jack?” she asked.
“Anything is possible, Pipe,” said Jack. “But think about it. Quent Raynor wasn’t the only person who wasn’t at the funeral reception. Anyone who wasn’t at the Sea Grill could have attacked Peggy. And that leaves a pretty large field.”
Piper took a sip of wine and considered what Jack had said. Who else would have a motive?
“Well, Phillip Brooks hated Travis York,” said Piper. “And he’s insanely jealous. Phillip can’t be happy about Glenna remarrying. Plus, he needs money—so it’s possible that he stole the necklace when he crashed the wrap party. What about him?”
Jack shook his head. “Again, Pipe. Jealousy and poverty are not enough to make an accusation of murder.”
The waiter came back to take their orders. Piper wanted the winter salad with pumpkin vinaigrette followed by the lamb loin. Jack went for the butter-poached oysters and the roasted sirloin.
“When our food comes, let’s not talk about this anymore,” said Piper. “Let’s just enjoy our dinner and forget all about this for a while.”
“Fine with me,” said Jack, sitting back in his chair and cracking his knuckles.
“What’s wrong?” asked Piper.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
“What gives you that idea?”
“Because whenever you don’t want to tell me something, you crack your knuckles.”
“I’ll have to avoid doing that from now on.” Jack smiled. “I don’t want to give myself away.”
“Well?”
“You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Fine, Pipe, you win. If you have to know, that wedding cake you’ve been working on may not get eaten. The police are really looking at Casey for Jessie’s murder and for the jewelry theft, too. Apparently, his brother told them something that didn’t help Casey at all.”
A
fter dinner, while nursing amaretto cordials, Jack pulled a small blue box tied with a red satin ribbon from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table in front of Piper.
“Oooh, Tiffany’s. I’m excited,” Piper exclaimed as she reached down and extricated Jack’s gift from the bag beside her.
“You first,” said Jack, with a twinkle in his eye.
“You don’t have to talk me into it,” said Piper as she pulled at the ribbon. “Oh, these are beautiful!” Piper held the pearl earrings up to her ears. “I love them, Jack. Thank you so, so much.”
Jack beamed.
“Now you,” said Piper.
In three seconds, he had the box opened.
“What a great color, Pipe,” he said as his hands caressed the soft blue cashmere. “I thought you were saving your pennies these days.”
Piper smiled. “Not when it comes to you, Jack.”
Wednesday, December 22 . . . Two days until the wedding
H
ow had everything gone so terribly wrong?
Just because he didn’t want Casey to take more money out of the business didn’t mean he wanted to ruin his brother’s life. But that’s just what he might have done.
When the police came to question him about the theft of the necklace, Arthur was certain that he himself was on their radar screen as a suspect. A detective asked if the necklace was insured and intimated that Arthur could have stolen it for the cash payout.
Arthur had panicked. “If that’s your reasoning, you should be looking at my brother, too. He needs the money even more than I do.”
The minute he said it, Arthur hated himself for blurting it out. The detectives had glanced at one another, passing a satisfied look.
What kind of a brother am I?
Arthur was staring into space when there was a knock at his office door.
“Come in,” he called.
The electroplating technician entered, holding a slip of paper in his hand. He held it out to Arthur.
“Here are the things we need reordered,” he said. “Silver anodes and potassium cyanide.”
C
ake flour, baking powder, unsalted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, eggs, whole milk, unsweetened cocoa powder. As Piper lined up her ingredients, she could hear her mother’s voice in her mind.
Always have all your ingredients ready before you start.
Piper took a deep breath and began to make her first wedding cake. Though she had been working on the plans and decoration and preparing all she could in advance, it was only now that it really felt like she was making a wedding cake. She sifted the flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a bowl and set it aside. She cut the butter into tablespoon-size pieces and then beat it until it was soft and creamy. Gradually, she added the sugar, beating until the mixture was light and fluffy. She scraped down the bowl and then mixed in the vanilla.
As she added the eggs one at a time, Piper thought about the wedding. It was still on, at this point, but who knew what would happen in the next two days? Glenna was convinced that Casey was going to be arrested any minute for Jessie’s murder. At first, the police thought it was connected somehow to the personal relationship the two had shared, but now, Casey had even been questioned in regard to the diamond theft. The police were speculating that Casey stole the diamond necklace, Jessie saw him do it, and he killed her because of it.
Except for the identity of the perpetrator, Piper thought the police could have that last part right. Piper had seen Jessie rush out of the studio. Maybe Jessie had witnessed the theft and wanted to get away from the thief. But why didn’t she tell someone about what she saw, or go to the police? Knowing now that Jessie had written the threatening letters to Glenna, Piper speculated that Jessie wouldn’t have wanted to shine any kind of spotlight on herself.
Piper poured the flour mixture, alternately with the milk, into the larger bowl and continued to beat until it was all smooth. Then she divided the batter and stirred the cocoa into a third of it. Piper wet and wrapped baking strips around the pans to keep the cakes level and prevent them from cracking. Finally, she divided the yellow batter between three pans of graduating circumferences, adding the chocolate batter in large spoonfuls in a checkerboard pattern and running a wooden skewer through the batter to create a marbled effect. She smoothed the tops with an offset spatula before sliding them into the oven. Because of their different sizes, Piper had already calculated how long each one would take to bake.
She set the timer and began her wait.
T
he front of the bakery had a steady stream of customers. Piper helped her mother and Cathy wrap up orders and ring up bills. When there was a lull in the activity, Piper went back to check her cakes.
She inserted a tester into the center of the smallest cake. It came out with just a few crumbs on it. She took the cake from the oven and placed it on a wire rack to cool.
There were a few more minutes until the second layer would be done. Piper decided to use the time to make her daily call to Peggy’s parents.
Mrs. Gould answered the phone. “Oh, Piper. Our prayers have been answered. The doctors are going to bring Peggy out of her coma later today.”
W
hen all the cakes were baked and cooled, Piper wrapped them well in plastic. She carefully placed them in the walk-in freezer. Freezing them, even overnight, would firm up the crumb and make it easier to level and split.
She heard the little ping come from her BlackBerry, signaling that she had gotten a text message:
PIX READY. WILL BRING 2 WEDDING ON FRIDAY.
Piper moaned. That was two whole days away. She didn’t want to wait that long. Piper texted back:
WILL B IN CITY 2NITE. CAN I COME 2 UR PLACE 2 SEE THEM?
A few more texts back and forth, and it was settled. Piper would be at Martha Killeen’s studio at seven o’clock.
T
here was a change of plans.
Piper had hoped to go to the hospital to visit Peggy first, but traffic was backed up from the George Washington Bridge, making her trip into Manhattan almost an hour longer than it should have been. She decided to head straight to Martha’s studio, because they had set a specific time. Piper could go to the hospital afterward.
At one point, with cars at a standstill, Piper took out her BlackBerry and posted:
MY FRIEND PEGGY IS BETTER AND MARTHA KILLEEN HAS MY PICTURES READY !
SEEING BOTH OF THEM 2NITE !!!
As Piper placed her BlackBerry in the cup holder, she felt a twinge of guilt. She had taken the Oprah Web site pledge to make her car a “No Phone Zone.” She knew that that included sitting in traffic. It was just such a hard habit to break.
Once over the bridge, Piper drove her parents’ sedan down the West Side Highway, noticing the line of cars on the other side of the divider, going in the opposite direction. The vehicles were barely moving.
Miserable,
Piper thought. The idea of the hours all those commuters had to spend at the end of each day slogging back home to New Jersey and Westchester County made her head hurt.
Please, let me never have to do that.
The Fourteenth Street exit led to the old meat-packing district, now the home of designer shops, good restaurants, and trendy bars. Piper turned down Washington Street and made a left on Perry. Miraculously, she found a parking space near Martha Killeen’s place.
Piper approached the building, wondering how much something like this actually would cost. Twenty million dollars? Even in a depressed real estate market it had to be worth at least fifteen million.
So close and yet so far.
H
e was almost finished. Quent had just one last stack of papers to sort through, and then he finally would be done cleaning out his office.
He picked up the pile and sat on the sofa. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been able to sit there. It was always covered with stuff. Stuff that he meant to attend to, stuff that he thought he might need someday.
Quent flipped through the papers, occasionally putting one aside, tossing most in the wastebasket. When he came to the one about cyanide, he stopped. He read the article again, still marveling at the audacity required to kill Travis York in front of so many people.
The days since the murder had been a whirlwind. Going to the funeral, dealing with the police and the press, following Peggy Gould’s condition, at the same time revising and rewriting scripts and attending to the final days of shooting in New York City. And then there was the jewelry theft on the last day before moving to Los Angeles. The police had eaten up his time with that, too, wanting to know how it could be related to Jessie Terhune’s death.
Quent hadn’t liked that woman from the get-go. She was too uptight and prissy. But he certainly didn’t wish her dead.
Had all that happened in less than two weeks’ time?
Quent looked down at the article on cyanide he held in his hand. He read the date printed on the bottom right-hand corner. December 10. Prompted by the murder, Quent had seen the potential of incorporating a story line about cyanide poisoning into the show. He had done some quick research on the Internet the day after Travis York was killed, and printed it out for future reference.
